The Irish Centre for Transnational Studies (ICTS) at MIC is set to lead a Symposium later this month on the theme of ‘Contested (Hi)Stories in Media and Creative Arts’.
The symposium will take place on 18 March as part of this year’s Limerick Early Music Festival (LEMF25) ‘Stories’, and the venue is Dance Limerick (Chapel, John’s Square) in the city centre.
This event—free and open to the public—will explore the role of media and the creative arts in challenging dominant narratives surrounding global conflict and forced migration. Beginning with a live performance of Migrating Musical Selves, which interweaves Ukrainian music and storytelling, a panel of leading researchers will examine how storytelling in literature, music and film can reshape public discourse and drive academic and political conversations. The event will conclude with the screening of an award-winning documentary. Participants are welcome to drop in during the day.
The symposium is co-organised by MIC academics Dr Sabine Egger (Associate Professor in German Studies & Joint Director of the ICTS) and Dr Ailbhe Kenny (Associate Professor in Music Education) as part of the ongoing three-year ICTS project ‘Trajectories of Belonging’.
Speaking ahead of the event, Dr Egger commented: "The ICTS creates opportunities for interdisciplinary exchange and transdisciplinary research collaboration. The diverse programme for the symposium aims to generate conversations about some of the major challenges facing Europe and the world. We very much hope that academics, researchers, people involved in the creative arts and the public can join us in dialogue at the event—which is taking place on the day after St Patrick’s Day, a festivity that is so culturally significant to identity and belonging in Ireland within an international context.”
Dr Kenny added: “We are delighted to be the Launch event for this year’s LEMF. We saw a great opportunity for this community partnership due to the theme of ‘stories’ to broaden out how such stories can be embodied through music, theatre, literature and multi-media forms. Furthermore, we see the Symposium as a unique way to bridge the worlds of research, practice, culture and community to explore difficult issues such as forced migration and global conflict.”
Symposium highlights include:
- The live performance of Migrating Musical Selves—a unique musical and theatrical presentation featuring Ukrainian musicians, directed by Dr Ailbhe Kenny and Dr Fiona McDonagh. This intimate performance piece uses fragments of sound and story to reveal how musicians make music as as an alternative way of being and as a way to understand the self and others. The performers include musicians Vsevolod Sadovyi and Snezhana Rybalska, as well as actors Ilinca Luca and Aisling Knox.
- Academic Panel: Thought-provoking presentations by leading scholars: Professor Florian Schneider (University of Trondheim/Galway) – Virtual Production & Questions of Abstraction and Empathy; Professor Monika Wolting (University of Wrocław) – Literature as a Predictive Model: How Literary Texts Anticipate Social and Political Developments, and Dr Ailbhe McDaid (MIC) – Pathologies of Violence: Irish Literary Responses to Global Conflict.
- Film Screening of Intercepted (2024), an acclaimed Canadian-French-Ukrainian documentary that contrasts everyday life in Ukraine with intercepted phone calls from Russian soldiers. In this feature-length documentary, sound and image merge as the film contrasts quiet compositions of everyday life of Ukrainians since the full-scale invasion with intercepted phone conversations between Russian soldiers and their families. The film raises key questions on fact and fiction, lived realities and narratives.
There will also be a reception that presents a networking opportunity for attendees to engage with speakers and performers.
The event is supported by the MIC Research & Graduate School‘s ‘Group Support Scheme’ and the Office of Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Interculturalism at MIC.
Click here for more information and the full ICTS symposium programme, and find out more about the LEMF25 programme here.
Article image taken as still from Intercepted (2024).
